I miss home. The smell of fresh cut grass. Air heavy and sticky hanging on shoulders slowing time and holding memories. Playing outside until it’s too late to see. Laying under stars still brightly shining. The ease of day holding tomorrow comfortably and capably when what is yet to come comes in dreams pleasant and waiting; never rushed to get too, for the day still is where you want to be. The way life used to put together and make sense.
I woke up this morning missing the life I once knew, wanting to go home, forget about where I am, lose myself in her familiar embrace. I say her of home because she embraced me well.
I am a sojourner moving at the speed of yesterday’s sound. I once felt found. Now, I’m more lost. The path buried beneath leaves of a season past.
Hope rings in my ears a bit louder, clearer and sweeter, with each passing day. And now, I’m just walking from there to somewhere every step forward further and closer defining what will be.
It’s not c’est la vie. We are not bound to life’s swing and circumstance. The path is not life’s to lead. It’s ours to follow.
I heard a friend share a promise yesterday that I no longer believed in. Until he reminded me, at least.
“...that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.”
Promise. It’s the magic of home, why all makes sense, why you would never want another day too badly.
All roads of promise always lead home. No matter the detour, impasse or difficulty; the gaps in life you don’t want to remember and the days you wish would burn away, promise reigns over all whether you bow in thankful exhale and submission or break and run in anxiety and fear.
I still miss home today. Days will rest easier again. Until then, God’s promise to keep at it guides in the up and down, the twisting and falling and the reach to summit.
Recently I scheduled time to sit down and share a meal with a friend of mine who scales the level of tremendous in my life ...and in the lives of many others. My buddy John shines no less than brilliant in life. The absolute best thing about him is you get the sense that he is as sure as he is unsure of what he is doing in life right now. It's not that John is unclear or unknowing. He clearly knows what he wants to do and must do in life. How he does what he wants to do is the challenge that he daily rises to. Day in and day out, John has tirelessly thought of questions to ask on how to launch a ministry and help lead men out of hurt into hope and tomorrow. In this way particularly, John encourages me deeply without even being aware.
John was a child who tragically lost a father and grew to become a man defined by hurt and abandonment. Yet through God's grace and miraculous forgiveness, he became a father refusing to lose his own children. John simply is a tremendous man with a dream too big for his shoulders. That's why he trusts God fiercely.
And this trust has led John to start a project called, The Father Effect.
I'd like to introduce my friend John Finch to you and let you in on the high points of our recent conversation captured in the 5 questions below. After reading through our conversation and hearing John's heart, watch the short film he made and share it with your friends.
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One on One: interview with John Finch
What led you to walk away from stability in an established 17 year career to pursue launching The Father Effect?
Everything began to change when I hit one of the lowest points in my life. February 20, 2009, I reached a point of real brokenness. I was an alcoholic and on a particular work trip I scheduled to see a customer, who was also an alcoholic, we stayed up drinking until about 5am. I somehow arrived back at my hotel room and laid down for about an hour before I had to be up to catch an early flight back to Dallas. As I drove to the airport, still drunk, I remember thinking that if I got pulled over, I could get busted for a DWI. I also went into confession mode like countless times before, telling God that I would never drink again. All the while, I knew very well the next time I hit the road it was game on. At one point on my way to the Nashville airport, I said out loud to God, "you are going to have to slap me up side the head to get my attention". And that's exactly what happened shortly afterward. February 20, 2009, our world came crashing down around us - both of my in laws were diagnosed with cancer, I had knee surgery, the stress on my relationship with my wife and kids was being strained because of all of my travel, and I had recently walked into an emergency room because I thought I was having a heart attack, just to name a few of the things.
I don’t think God did those things to me, but I believe he surfaced in the midst of them and caught my attention. Little did I know that that was only the beginning.
Nearly a year later at the beginning of 2010, God had really started to stir my heart. Part of what God was impressing upon me was the fact that I was gone so much - two or three days a week - for as long as I had had kids, and it had started to take a toll on my family, both my wife and kids. I also began to get a picture of just how massive a problem absent fathers had become to most everyone that I knew. One weekend in early June of that year, I starting praying for God's direction and guidance about this stirring. I asked God to give me some kind of confirmation. I determined to spend the weekend praying and devoted to quality family time. At the end of a long day on Saturday, laughing having great time together, I put them to bed and walked back down the stairs to pray and think a bit more. Within 5 minutes, my middle daughter came down the stairs with the oldest not far behind and she simply asked with tears in her eyes, "Dad, why are you traveling so much?" Before I knew, they were both crying. Neither one of them had ever asked me that question. There was my confirmation from God. I assured them both that I was going to stop traveling and be home more. The next week, I put in my two weeks’ notice.
Tell me about the first day of your new life. What was it like?
The first day of my new life was freedom and healing like I’d never known before. This quote that I once came across describes the feeling best. "I was homesick for a place I had never been." I cannot explain it other than I felt God in every detail. I felt as though I had a new perspective about everything. I had a father wound and needed healing. One simple question that God posed to me turned my life upside down. Almost instantly I discovered forgiveness. Really, I think forgiveness found me in the question - "How could I be so angry, bitter, and resentful towards a man who did not know how to be a dad?" It was as if God had given me a new pair of glasses that made me see everything in a way that I had never seen them before. My relationship with my wife was new, my relationship with my kids was new, and even the world was new. All because the baggage of my past had been lifted from my shoulders. I had spend 30 years of my life living in the past blaming my dad for all my troubles.
Three days after I left my job to launch the ministry I met a guy named Charlie. Charlie was the car transporter who had come to pick up my company car from the job I had just left. Within 5 minutes of conversation, Charlie asked me what I was going to do now that I had left my job. I told him a little bit about all that I had been through, and he began to cry as he told me the story about his father. Charlie said that when he was 5 years old, his dad took him to a ballgame with some of his dad's friends. He said that his dad bought him a huge bucket of popcorn and bragged on him to his buddies like he was superman. Charlie said that he doesn't remember much after that because his dad left the family. For many years, Charlie said that he would get this strange feeling of peace when he went to the movies and bought a bucket of popcorn. In his mid 60's, some fifty years later, he soon realized that it was all because of that day at the ballgame with his dad.
What are the most valuable lessons learned or truths realized since starting The Father Effect?
I am continuing to learn so many things that it would be impossible to list them all here, but here are a few of the important things. I am not alone, we are all broken, and I could be a better father. Satan had convinced me for 30 years that I was all alone and that I was the only one going through the struggles and issues. Once I realized that everyone else had issues and struggles too, I didn't feel alone. And when I came to understand just how widespread the Father Wound was, I didn't feel alone, understanding that everyone has issues and are wounded in some way because of the experiences of life. I, like many men, thought that I was a pretty good father, but I was satisfied with only that, being a pretty good father. I soon came to understand that I could be a great father and the importance of striving for that made me a better father. I began walking in daily awareness of my actions and words as a father. And part of becoming a better father was loving my kids’ mom. Understanding that the way I treat my wife is how my girls see normal to be was eye-opening for me. Knowing that they were watching my every move and that I was setting the standard by which they are going to measure every man, and more importantly, their future husbands.
What are your hopes for the film? What's the next step?
My hope for the film is that it ignites a movement of fathers who walk in daily awareness of the significant and lifelong influence they have on their kids because the words and actions they use every day. I hope that it results in us being able to equip, educate, and encourage men with the resources they need to become great fathers. I pray that God uses it to reach millions of men and that it is seen in thousands of churches, universities, and addiction treatment centers all over the world, freeing men to be the fathers God has called them to be. The messages that need to be told are numerous and they are the catalyst for conversations that need to be had between fathers and kids and between husbands and wives.
Twenty years from today, what do you hope to have accomplished?
Twenty years from today, I hope to have helped redefined what it means to be a father. I hope this film and many others we make have changed the lives of generations - children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren - because it changed the hearts of fathers. My hope and prayer is that I have been obedient to what God has called me to do. And, twenty years from now, I hope to be sitting on a beach somewhere in Maui with my grandkids telling my wife "We did pretty good, huh".
“Tomorrow found in today; what’s ahead discovered in days behind.”
This has become somewhat of an echoing mantra and anchoring core value in my life. Often what we need for today and beyond lies in the path behind us. A risk that taught us to trust more. A failure that taught us bravery. A mistake that taught us humility. A hurt that taught us to bleed. A loneliness that taught us to find. A darkness that taught us courage. A victory that taught us to win.
Whatever those steps pressed into the ground of yesterday hold, above all, they hold life and answers and path.
The writing of my book gave perfect opportunity to look back, gaze upon the burning heap of dreams behind ...look ...love ...want ...hurt ...break, and mostly ...find. Recounting pieces of my past floating, stretching further apart on life pulling like the tide and swelling waves, has, in a way, been the greatest happening. Many days I felt like a scavenger walking through barren lands once rich and fertile, now hollow and uninhabited. And then, I would stumble upon deep wells of remembrance whispering words I couldn’t understand but laced with promise and passage finding penetrating way into the chambers of my heart.
Losing my wife, a woman whom I loved indescribably, did nothing less than change me completely.
Life turned unexpectedly and unforgivably. I stopped lost in tracks. The steps behind me began to guide me with each faith-filled, God following, narrowly trusting, grace infusing step into the unknown.
Future bowing to past in homage and honor. My eyes learned new, the value of unknown and how to choose.
Here’s an excerpt central to my story from a chapter currently entitled, “Surely Goodness and Mercy.”:
I saw a man alone, subdued by pain, frightened by the fear of all that may be some day, and I quietly asked to never be that man. I can't. I won't. The man fumbling through fading memories like a thief holding a leaking bag, the man stumbling drunk on why things settled they way they did, talking to himself, mumbling angrily and hurt. That will not be me.
My daughters will not know him. They might see me wince and wrestle to the ground...
But they will never know a hollowed heart comfortable only in shadows. I may not have much greater to give them than that but it will be an echo that resounds like bells of freedom in their warm little hearts. Always. I pray.
I will not allow myself to be the man hollowed by pain, afraid of shadows and those things which lie in waiting. Life may indeed only seem to take from us, days, memories, happiness, but courage is mine to give. And the source, it is immeasurably and unfathomably deep. It is unending. Through darkened spots and failing strength, the reason for courage remains.
For months following her death, I only prayed for God to piece back together the life I was forced from. So little did I know and perceive the beauty of his bridge building redemptive ability lies within the thinnest, most inescapable steps when I am invited to only follow and not need bearing or direction or understanding.
Each day, a decision.
Choose wisely. Trust ridiculously. Step faithfully.
...
A day forsaken is a day forgotten.So many want only to escape.
“How’ve you been, man?”
Such a simple question often returned with loosely connected surface somethings. Quite often, I volley back one of a few pre-packaged responses always ready to buffer conversation passed me and into decisions needed to be made or details floating in my days. Or the shallow response gently deflects the question back to the other person. My automatic responses vary slightly into some form of “great” or “busy” or “well”. It seems as though even when things aren’t great, busy or well, those words are still regular in my friendly responses.
I haven’t been asked that question lately. At least not as often. There was a time in the not too distant past when I heard those words everyday. Many times over in each day, actually. How was I adjusting to life after the death of my wife? How were my three young daughters? What were we going to do? These questions and more were all motivating the constant questioning and concern. But time moves on. Concern and curiosity from friends and family remains but naturally waned a bit in time passing. A year. Nearly two. Healthy smiles and new adventures and the constant questioning softened to a lull.
Because of one word, this particular time the question caught me a bit off guard. The distinguishing word in my friend’s questioning: “man”. Maybe, too, the way the question was asked and who was asking made it stand out.
Shortly after we met, John grew naturally into a friend of great stature in my life. Committed to doing something about what he knows, John often finds himself in the right place at the right time. With little concern, my friend is quick to respond to needs. His quick abandon and committed response drips of Jesus. And people draw to him as John closes in on their need with genuine, deep concern. One of the most profound things that John ever said to me was in the form of a confession. Driving me from the hospital to my home so that I could shower and get a change of clothes, he fumbled with a confidence bigger than himself and the moment through feelings conflicted. My wife wavered between life and death, I sat shocked and sinking and overwhelmed and his words were simple.
“I really don’t know what to say, man, but I know God is in control.” Those were his words, my friend John’s. And they were more than enough.
And just a couple days ago, sitting in the warmth of evening sun John’s question slowed my thoughts and stopped me from conquering the world for a moment of honest reflection and simple words.
“Good, I think.”
I hadn’t stopped to really think about how I’ve been doing lately. And maybe my lack of thought and constant emotional self assessment revealed something new blooming in my day to day.
There were countless days when the thought of something wrong with me hung overhead like a following, defining cloud. Following. Defining. In my bleak estimation, life didn’t add up, my wife’s sudden death was a variable I had not accounted for. Life held an incalculable value and happiness, meaning and joy alluded me.
Somewhere along the way I forgot. Not in the way a person forgets due to uneventfulness or inactivity, but because of replacement. Maybe love. Maybe laughter. Maybe the newness of life as adventure. Whatever replaced hurt exactly in my life, days unfolded easier and laughter more frequent and honest.
Here’s the thing about hurt and pain: it’s leachy and holding.
When you decide it ends, it just does. Hurt and pain give way to life and resumption. Pain doesn’t just run its course or simply end. It remains as long as you allow it. And pain defines throughout the time it remains.
Pain is hurt still hurting. So many allow pain residence and place in their heart. You can see it plainly on their face and in every move and seemingly every decision made. Pain becomes them.
Healing is the faith of painless living.
I heard a story years back of a man who grasped tightly to a specific hurt so grievously inflicted by another that he lived with it for years. Bitter still in old age, he walked right up to his offender’s house one day long beyond cause for remembrance and punched him then for reason still apparent only to him, the offended. The hurt one holding onto pain holding onto him.
That is precisely what pain does. It encapsulates you. Hurt happens. It will time and time again. Some hurts will be small, mundane jabs that threaten to cling to you and others will be near fatal deathblows that drop you to your knees. In both cases of pain and hurt and beyond, you decide when it ends and when you begin to turn your face north to a new day inviting.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
In each day, both darkened by the stain of hurt and glowing in the goodness of God, his love gives certain cause for joyful continuation and resumption of life free of pain. When you decide it ends, it does because God's love never relents and is always present.
Recently, along with a few others, I received an invite to write as a guest for a friend’s site (sayable.net). The scope of topics were laid out for our choosing. I chose to write about trust.
Trust does not always come with natural and effortless ease. For me, and I’d imagine for quite a few of you, trust cuts against the grain of comfort and quiet in my heart. Even in sinking moments when obvious cues scream move, jump, hold, remember, and the promise of better fades into plain sight, trust is not a neatly resolved conclusion.
It is the first step onto a rickety bridge promising to hold you some 20 feet above a crossing that bears the most fear ...and the most trust.
You must value something as true before you give trust.
In the day to day, trust adds up to more than disconnected, autonomous decisions. Trust is a journey both into oneself and out of the shifting wasteland of one’s life as center and end. What we trust reveals what we belief, value honestly as supportive and sustaining and ascribe as true.
I’d like to thank Lore for inviting me to guest on her site during her hiatus and allowing me space to draw from below my heart’s surface and bleed a bit on paper (or screen). Make sure to visit her site and subscribe for regular updates. She’s working on a book that you’ll want to read. Trust me.
All wiped away.
In the blurring winds circling in and out of days, blowing chaotic and careless, rest gets lost in the reach, in those breaths drawn in deeply and in tears that cut paths across dry cheeks.
I laid easy under a clear sky yesterday. For hours, just floating in and out of thoughts as gentle waves reached and recoiled. The sound whispered hypnotic abandon.
Rest alludes us. Always seemingly ahead waving empty in mirage heat while finding escape in the details of life and circumstance. We don’t rest. What we do is recharge to catch up and prepare for whatever’s next. We give regular pause when day gives way to night, but our minds race and unravel, our dreams reveal and recover and our hearts crave true belonging.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
...from racing ...from wanting ...from sinking ...from spinning
...from being lost ...from being apart
Rest lies real in the divine.
“I will give you rest. ...you will find rest for your souls.”
Wake up to start again. Our hearts paused only to resume once more.
Yes, rest alludes.
Even the happiest and most well kept individuals recharge, at best.
Our sin, all the wrong that takes residence in our heart, the imperfections we tolerate, the energy in wondering of what more, these bear more weight than mere happiness and resourcefulness. Our souls search for more. Something that will appease the unrest residing in every existing minute. Are we enough? Are we right? Are we okay?
Can we truly ever rest?
Truth is, the soul quenching rest that quiets all fear innate and intrinsic is otherworldly. We are incapable of such now.
We feel it in moments when we gaze at the sky or give honest observation to natural beauty. All else fades, including time passing, and rest passes close by. There, we unhinge from this life and feel the warmth of eternity and how much grander it is than all of the choking cares of now. It is magical and deeply invigorating. But rest, as in reprieve,
There will be a day when grace concedes to glory. Rest will truly come then.
When worries wean and fears exist no more, when struggle ends and doubts prove empty, when the last redemptive stroke is made, in a day perfected by God’s glory, rest will be the inheritance of those clinched to grace today.
Ahead, pulling us forward. Kingdom come.
The sky yesterday expanded in such unending, new beauty. I felt as though I could look into forever and be found in each floating cloud. I laid on my back in the sand next to my oldest daughter and together we spied eternity, not in clouds rolling gently but in time slowing between us and words together wondering.
Still echoing in her words and heart, “Why did mom die?” “What will life be like?” “Where will she rest when her thoughts run?”
There will be a day when all that once violated her heart, eroded her innocence and kept me up worrying, will forever fade in the glory of God. Until that day somewhere ahead, we live in his Kingdom come here and now. We find rest now amidst all wrong. That rest in founded and supported continual in our residence established in God’s glory in a indescribable day to come.
All wiped away as night gives way to day, warm and new. Rest in that tomorrow today.
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)
"Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come,your will be done,on earth as it is in heaven.11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts,as we also have forgiven our debtors.13 And lead us not into temptation,but deliver us from evil.(Matthew 6:9-11)
Once again, deeper there on the trail crowded by overgrowth and choked by dust, I felt the responsibility in each of their little vulnerable steps.
“Dad, I can’t.”
“Trust me, you can. Just put your foot right where you feel my hand.”
A few minutes earlier, we came to a small clearing right off the trail that gave glimpse to a waterfall. The sound of water rushing. The cool of mist hanging in air. They had to see it. The beauty of nature demanded attention. Between us and the sight to behold, a small rock face and a ledge to balance on. With little thought of anything going wrong, I started down the rock face determining our path. The descent, not much more than 20 feet, a bit precarious for their little legs and tense hearts, but necessary to see the waterfall completely. And in my mind, they absolutely had to see it.
I am father to three amazing little daughters. They have no other parent now. Just me.
I have little idea of how to raise daughters on my own. All the shifting intricacies and suddenly swelling emotions. I second guess myself and hesitate at least a handful of times most days. They cry huge girl tears which fall unexpectedly and unpredictably. I worry. What’s wrong? Before I can catch up and figure out what’s going on, they’re done. The moment behind them. Tears get lost in laughter. And they talk way too much by my account. Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing them talk about the day, their experiences and how they are seeing the world, but sometimes our conversational thresholds are very, very different.
Being dad rests as a huge responsibility in each day and decision. So much more than ever before or imagined.
Together, we crash landed onto the shores of life now and new. The wreckage of the life we knew still ablaze and in sudden disarray.
“DAD, you’re here!!!” they yelled with excitement.
Leaping hugs ensued as they engulfed me with energy building during the week we were apart. For a moment, I was raptured back to the world I knew when they would run to greet me as I returned from work. That world and the loving memories of it vanished with the words that followed. “Where’s mommy?” asked Elizabeth, our oldest daughter. “When is mommy coming home from the hospital?” asked Chloe, our youngest with anxious excitement. I could not even swallow to say something. This was so much more terrible than I could have ever imagined. Emily, our middle daughter, was quiet. I could tell she knew something was wrong, very wrong, as she backed into the shadows of her heart trying to not be part of what was happening. My heart crumbled and quaked inside of my chest. They had no idea yet exactly how dark the day was and how different their lives had become. As their daddy, the one person walking this Earth set to protect them, their words were like someone violating the sacredness of our family, our togetherness. It felt as though someone stabbed me in the heart with the dullest knife, maybe a spoon. And I swear I could see life dim a little in their eyes as they saw the loneliness present in mine.
“Let’s go outside. I need to talk to you, girls.”
That is how this together started; me and the three of them. A conversation about death and tragedy, what’s no more and unknown ahead. Together, in the middle of two very different days, all sinking and me trying to keep our heads above water rising.
Before their mother’s death, we were five together. Life was tamed by love and dreams to chase after. In so many countless little ways, life laid out far less complex and with comforting ease. Life made sense. God existed always measurably good.
I never imagined living life as a single parent. So much responsibility. Most of the time, details slip past me and dates fall through the cracks.
Here’s the thing: parenting is much more privilege and much less about responsibility.
It has to be. Otherwise, you’ll raise robots, rebels or aging dependents. It is not your responsibility to make your kids succeed in life. It is your privilege to lead them along treacherous paths and be a part of revealing the panoramic ahead.
Responsibility is a to do list, a weighted must; a burden lacking discovery, heroism, courage and love. Your kids will always remember moments you lifted them, times you saved them and whispers of greatness planted in the soil of their little looking hearts. The scariest thing I’ve ever had to do as their dad was let go. Responsibility hangs heavy in weighty apprehension. Do this. Say that. Allow this. Never that. Responsibility will keep you running to little fires with an always leaking bucket of maybes and overreactions and weak second guesses.
I can no more save them than I can myself. I had to let go of responsibility as priority in parental definition. It is a parenting must.
More than father to my three little beautiful daughters, I am a son made to belong where I shouldn’t by a forever loving Father who just does not quit. Loosening my grip on responsibility as king didn’t make me less responsible, but more responsive to their growing needs. The privilege of being dad to Elizabeth Marie, Emily Anne and Chloe Grace opens me to lead them wherever life turns and towards the women they will soon one day be.
We inched down the rock face, my hands and words guiding each step. Together we took in the view and felt the mist lightly spraying about us. We shared a small victory, their little hearts grew stronger and I learned more about parenting in that moment than most others before.
